LadyKitty.6120

Wouldn't say that boon chrono did no damage (unless built minstrel's which was a healer itself). Certainly lower than AlacRene (always paired with firebrand) but way above healer-tier. And since druid had spirits but couldn't bring alac or quickness, chrono was basically the only choice unless you wanted to run druid+2 boon-DPS in same sub (and people didn't). And on a sidenote, lots of people thought for longest time that only chrono was capable of tanking due to Distortion, shield block and Blurred Frenzy (and commanders requiring specifically chronotank after healbrand and heal scrapper became a thing became one of Kitty's worst pet peeves). These days people would probably run 2 heal chronos and 8 DPS (probably including 2 condi scourges for might+minor barrier) if chrono was still capable of bringing both quickness and alacrity. So, it is pretty reasonable that they nerfed it to bring only one of them.

That's exactly what players would do since DPS checks are mostly a joke at this point and if the squad has felt uncomfy, they've just thrown in a heal tempest or heal scourge as 3rd healer this far.

Sure, if they'll be like Boneskinner difficulty-wise. Otherwise, no ty. Rest of IBS bosses aren't much different from DPSing the golem, just requiring a tiny bit of movement and Whisper sometimes (rarely) wiping the squad sub-25% if people mess up the orbs. At least in EoD and SotO strikes, you actually need to actively deal with mechanics even though their slow tempo makes them rather easy in normal mode. (excluding Ankka's quaggans and HT's post-Kralk phases which do have fair chance of killing multiple players if moving improperly)

Not sure if the recent changes to WvW have affected it but what Kitty's done is flipping a camp and then set 8 minutes on alarm clock and did something else meanwhile. When alarm clock rings, it was good time to start clearing the camp so it was ready to be flipped when 5-minute uncapturable timer was up. Rinse and repeat.

Tbh, currently there's a bunch of bosses with random aggro or mechanic-based tank. If clear tank mechanics were added to create clear tank roles, it would just turn all bosses into brainless "tank stands still, everyone else hug the behind" (like VG, KC and Gors) unless you also added tons of mechanics that forced moving (with DPS+vulnerability penalty if you get hit), similar to KO CM. Ofc tanks would still be either healers or whatever build does most DPS while bringing the minimum needed to tank 'cause truth be told, it seems pretty impossible to convince people any other way. Meta is real. And just "highest DPS"-based doesn't work 'cause nobody (except trolls and griefers) enjoys a boss that spins and moves around uncontrollably. Though, Matthiass does that but people still try to somewhat control where he goes 'cause it's annoying.

When it comes to launcher, IBS one was Kitty's favourite. For character selection, HoT was nice as it didn't give characters a weird tint (which esp. PoF one did) and thus fashions looked bestest. Also, HoT Overture was easily the best login screen music this far (in Kitty's hateful opinion).

Then what do you suggest? In instanced PVE, the alternative would be pretty much everyone running self-heal traits and max. damage reduction (unless the very little elite % that doesn't eat ANY mechanics) and everything would take so long that for ex. T4 fractals would basically die compared to current state (and note: Kitty did do T4s during the era when it was just 5 DPS with self-boon builds before the influx of raiders and current heal+boonDPS+3DPS comp. Way smoother and funnier now.)

Any ideas on how to implement that with power builds? With condis it'd be a simple matter of reducing stacks and increasing duration but with power that would essentially require converting most strike damage skills into DoTs similar to guardian's focus 4 or something?

...why you would ever mention that horror? Kitty's still traumatized from doing open-world "RNG'd build" stream on it. 🙀

Guardian scepter, hammer, off-hand sword and mace? Warrior maces, rifle and off-hand dagger? Mesmer scepter? Thief sword, shortbow and pistol builds? Rev hammer? Half of engi kits? Ele conjures and staff? Ranger greatsword and longbow? Necro focus and warhorn? Mesmer's heal output? Just to name a few underperformers that need some serious buffing. They need to also buff the underperformers while nerfing the overperformers to get things balanced. And when it comes to balancing underperforming weapons, it's not even much harder than adjusting modifiers and some condi durations upwards.

Actually, you can also apparently filter varying amounts of logs and currently there's 1022 MO logs from last 3 weeks. Kinda small sample size but then again, GW2 has probably the smallest instanced content scene among the big MMOs. And it does have a filter for support builds, which indeed not perfect but still significantly lowers the skew in numbers. (for ex. scourge goes from 29k to 36k average if you check that option. Btw 10k higher than what's been standard for Kitty's aka. "80-85% of bench" player's average performance on the boss before the power creep) And for further accuracy, it has cdps/pdps filter as well to separate better and worse performing versions of the spec. So, not perfect but it's the best we players have for real situation-data. But ofc people don't use only that but also spreadsheets with the precise numbers of each skill when estimating when something's overtuned. Not to forget logs showing damage distributions between various conditions and power dps skills for further analysis. (though not precise power/condi damage distribution for condi skills since all condi damage is shown as damage from condi type) Ofc devs might have further advanced tools but we players don't know about the depth they can see to.

But we do have quite a bunch of data, over 8 million logs since 2017. Just as some examples (good comparison point would be for ex. SotO launch vs July 2019 BP, selectable through drop-down menu): MO (aka. DPS golem): https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/mo Sabetha: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/sab Matthiass (a very mechanical boss): https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/matt Those show top and average performances and you can also have it analyze 100 random logs of that era for each boss to get general idea of dps distribution. Fancy stats also have stuff like Balance Patch Impact available for spec's general performance in the era vs previous. Though it is true that current balance has only lasted 3 weeks vs usual 3+ month between balance patches so sample size isn't that huge. But the point is: people aren't shooting in the dark, those who are seriously invested in buildcrafting and balance do check various data before their suggestions. Educated opinions.

Really had to make a separate thread after posting pretty much same comment in another thread? 🤔 https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/137379-power-creep-the-game-is-too-easy/?do=findComment&comment=1989394

What it should be balanced around is numbers. The information for the damage math is available on wiki, though cast times need to be recorded either through damage meter and parser or some other tool that they should be using, and people have spreadsheets, some with trait and other interactions included into the calculations (though at times it seems like balance team is going by feel with some decisions) . And human error aside, golem testers are often testing how those maths turn out in practise. And not-so-surprisingly, those calculations usually aren't that far off from in-game numbers. Just depends on how close to perfect execution you get. And to be clear, some buildcrafters (like Kitty) have actually done the maths before giving detailed suggestions and those have often resulted in improved balance when implemented with previously unused stuffs becoming viable options. If you have any counter-arguments and suggestions on what they should base their balancing on instead, preferably including why, Kitty would like to read them.

The trick: Celestial gears from lvl80 boost (or something even worse), bad weapon combo, non-DPS utility skills and random mix of traits without any synergy. Very common thing to happen for players who haven't done any squad content and taught better (which is likely the majority of players given the open-world focused nature of the game) and probably the #1 cause of game feeling very needlessly difficult.

Due to long range, rifle power mechanist is also pretty effective since it doesn't need to run around much and if you know how to line up yourself for piercing (good skill to have), you can kill multiple enemies at once by targeting furthest mob and having others between you and that. Power virtuoso should also be pretty good.

Just for clarification... In March 2017, large hitbox benches were 34-38k and (more relevant) small hitboxes were 30-33.7k (most builds slightly above 30k). In May, they were buffed to 36-39.6k and 29.3-36.2k. Now we have small hitbox benches at 42-49k for metabuilds which is basically 40-50% increase to baseline and the DPS >99% of content was balanced for. By the time we got our last 3 raids, top builds were doing 38-39k DPS and only compensation for increased DPS over recent years have been exposed nerfs (not applicable to squad content) and removal of unique buffs (with metabuilds having got buffs in compensation and some off-meta weapons still collecting dust in obsolution). If you want precise numbers, wayback machine has crawls of qtfy .eu/benchmarks and snowcrows .com from that era.

Some points from a buildcrafter. 1. The massive DPS boosts from weaponmaster training allowing the combos of best weapons with the specs with highest multipliers causes other specs and weapons to be inferior choices by a good margin and that is a massive issue for versatility unless either all the inferior specs and weapons are boosted to same level (massive work) or offending specs and weapons are nerfed to a healthier baseline (and inferior weapons buffed). 2. The nerfs aren't required just because some tryhards bench superhard. If you actually do some spreadsheet gaming, you could easily see that some elite spec weapons are massively overtuned compared to others and previously they were kept in check by the spec itself being weaker. (for ex. ele's warhorn and Tempest) And while some builds doing insane damage means that even people of lower skill level would do good damage on them, it is kinda a problem since those people (as well as the more skilled players) are easily locked into playing just those few builds. Currently the best builds are simply so overtuned that playing any of the previously semi-viable off-meta builds would count as griefing in any half-decent squad even if you played the off-meta build at 100% proficiency. That and the relic fiasko pretty much kill the point of buildcrafting and running non-meta weapon+spec combos atm.

Problem with these 99x52 is that yeah, you technically have more options now but...the number of relevant combos is about same or lower than runes were. Pretty much 3-5 relics are currently worth using and each of those have 1-2 runes are superior combos with them compared to other rune options so the real useful number of rune+relic combo options is under 10. Scholar/DH/Infiltration+Thief/Fireworks (depending on crit rate and power/crit damage breakpoint), Monk+Monk and Trapper+Aristocracy/Fractal/Akeem. In some cases, one might consider some specific boon/condi duration rune instead. Previously we had bunch of runes used by various condi builds, Monk/Pack/Flock used by heal/support builds and Scholar, Thief, Ogre and some power+precision runes as well as meme runes like Golemancer used by power builds. And that's just instanced PVE, open-world builds used various runes for self-booning and survivability through various now-gone 6th bonuses and as people have been loud about, bunch of WvW builds that relied on 6th bonus for their playstyle are demolished without any real replacements...except using some boring standard combo with nerfed gameplay. Tl;dr there's more theorethical options but less (and many missing that should be there) practical quality options.

From a buildcrafter's perspective, the way relic system was implemented is really problematic: 60% of old options gone with 12% new ones being added and many additions are functionally almost same with just a few options on triggers. Some of the options are too undertuned to be an option (Relic of Mabon is 175 power/condition damage so less than 5% for most power builds with a hefty price when it ends while Thief rune is reliable 5% on most builds) and we're missing many build-defining special interactions that either covered for build's weak spot (boon runes like Pack for builds without Fury or Swiftness output), augmented some aspect (Sanctuary's heals2barrier, Rebirth's "negate lethal blow"), added some flair that wasn't exactly DPS increase but hugely added either a friend or RP value(summons as golems for golemancers and you deleted John Wick's rock doggo and piwates don't "Yarr!" anymore) or added new trait-like functionality to skills (like the infamous trapper runes' "stealth when you trap" and weaver runes' "barrier when you use stance skill"). Some of what Kitty sees as a problem with some of the current relics is how they're boosting different thing than what their trigger is generally used for. Most glaringly Cantrips: on specifically Deadeye there's a couple offensive ones but in general Cantrips are utility/support-type of skills and in that regard, the old "gain might when you use Cantrip" made sense. Currently, considering how there's lots of strike damage buffers already, adding short AoE immobilize around the player when using the Cantrip might work better on Relic of the Deadeye. Or maybe add a bit of superspeed? And using elite skill as trigger is quite problematic, especially for support-type triggers (Zephyrite and Pack relics as examples). Many builds use elite skills for a specific strong function and adding some small buff to them isn't enough to make spamming them worth it or even make it noticeable in most cases. Tying strong buff would force a choice between spamming and risking what elites was taken to be used against or saving and not ending up getting the buffs and in such scenario, defaulting to Monk/Thief/Aristocracy is better option overall and that results in dead relics. In this case, it'd be promoting active use for the sake of active use resulting in no use at all. Even though passivity might sound boring, in the case of boon-generation (except quickness and alacrity) and stuff like what Ranger, Rebirth and Sanctuary runes used to do, it can sometimes be a superior option. To be clear, unless we get a new reliable way of generating Fury and Swiftness through relic, bunch of support builds that used to use Pack runes to bring those boons are heading from borderline existence to obsolution and that's a goodbye to diversity. *insert "You were meant to" Obi-Wan and Anakin meme here* But yeah, on top of that, relics being soulbound on use and costing a lot also makes testing builds incredibly expensive and would take too much bag space. At least in the past before legendary runes, it was possible to share the rune+armor set between all users of same weight class or extract the runes with Endless Upgrade Extractor. As such, the relics are extremely anti-alt system until legendary relic is released. Also, we now need some SERIOUS balancing. Since there wasn't much adjusting from beta, allowing combining the strongest weapons with specs with highest modifiers is causing extreme powercreep atm. 48k dps on Scourge was a big enough problem to warrant a hotfix during early PoF era but if it's now becoming a norm with multiple specs doing that on their optimal weapons+specs-combo...that'll be the end of GW2 as the game with most versatile build system. It's seriously a time to tune down the damage a bunch or challenging content becomes "oh, a squishy punchybag lolz". Just tuning up the underperformers (aka. 80% of the system now) doesn't work. (though even before expansion half of weapons were at borderline/non-viable tier of usefulness due to recent buffs to metaweapons) And for the oh-so-personal dramatic end note: as an altoholic and buildcrafter, the aforementioned problems are causing Kitty to find very little fun in Tyria. Until things are rebalanced, missing relics added in better way and legendary relics released, Kitty's probably on a hiatus. Buildcrafting is just too costly+bothersome and there's no point with missing vital options and most results being ineffective already in theory.

Kitty's thoughts: -Make mirage's dagger ambush into power skill. Currently it has very little synergy with rest of dagger skills since they only inflict Bleeding through Virtuoso traits. Also, introduce "+150 Power" to Nomad's Endurance and "Clones deal 25% more strike damage when they ambush" to Infinite Horizons. -Axe (and scepter) need some buffing.

As in title, Serpent Siphon currently seems to use proximity-priority around target location instead of (sub)squad priority. Easiest way to replicate the bug is to go to some crowded place as scourge and cast Serpent Siphon twice on a fixed spot: 1. with you further away from the spot than 5+ random players and 2. with you on the spot. Kitty tested this both alone and in party with her alt.

And this problem is linked to Let Loose-trait that gives quickness when you ambush. So, that trait doesn't work with staff.

Betas this far have basically created a copy of your account (bank etc.) that is accessed by beta characters only and that copy gets deleted when beta is over. If Kitty remembers correctly, you can't access TP on beta characters as that could result in market manipulation. Thus, if you want to prepare, Kitty suggests banking ascended gears that you want to use as well as relevant foods (even though beta gives some stuff).

Kity actually played FF14 quite a bit earlier this year, all classses above 60 and some at 90. Healers have a clearly different playstyle (Kitty mains healers), DPSers have their mostly unique playstyle (DNC, RDM, SMN and BLM all play different despite same role). And while tanks have similar tanking skills ('cause role skills are role skills), their DPS skills (tank DPS matters!) and how they work are different, not to mention sustain sources.